The Kaiser and His Court: Wilhelm II and the Government of Germany

Within a couple of decades Kaiser Wilhelm II had led the German Reich into World War and collapse. How did the Kaiser come to have so much power? Using new archival sources, this book analyzes the Kaiser and the nature of his rule. After an original character sketch of the Kaiser, the book then examines the Kaiser's friends and favorites, the neo-absolutist culture of the court and of Berlin society, and the nature of his relationship with the court and with the administrative corps in Prussia and the Reich. A final chapter reveals for the first time the extent of the exiled Kaiser's anti-Semitism.

“"Years of imaginative spadework in private archives and in former East Germany have unearthed new sources, chief among them the staggeringly detailed correspondence of Wilhelm's parents...It is unlikely that another biography of Wilhelm will ever surpass the level of detail or the depth of archival knowledge R”

'The Kaiser and his Court is solid and speculative; it is cautious and provocative. It is brilliant history.' Washington Times '... superbly researched and fluently written.' Andrew Roberts, The Sunday Telegraph '... cool, spare, scholarly. But for all that, John Rohl has written a startling, even sensational book ... [his] brilliant study chillingly reveals Kaiser Wilhelm II as a grandparent of the great horrors of the twentieth century.' Peter Bradshaw, The Evening Standard

JOHN C. G. ROHL is Research Professor of German History, University of Sussex

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